Jere­miah 16:19 “LORD, my strength, and my strong­hold, and my refuge in the day of afflic­tion, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Our fathers have inher­ited noth­ing but lies, even van­ity and things in which there is no profit.”

This prophecy shall serve as a warn­ing to all of us. It should prompt us all to exam­ine our own reli­gions to make sure that what we hold as truth is not false­hood, lies inher­ited from our fathers in the faith. How do we know they are true if we never tested, ques­tioned them? Is it not our respon­si­bil­ity as indi­vid­u­als to seek some kind of proof?

Chris­tian­ity for long has taught that the law of Moses was abol­ished by the cross of Christ. If it is so, we need to find proof from prophecy. How­ever, we find quite the opposite:

Jere­miah 31:31 “Behold, the days are com­ing, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their hus­band, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my peo­ple. 34 And no longer shall each man teach his neigh­bor and each his brother, say­ing, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the great­est, says the LORD; for I will for­give their iniq­uity, and I will remem­ber their sin no more.”

You shall notice, that the new covenant proph­e­sied by Jere­miah is not char­ac­terised by a state of exis­tence where there is no law, indeed, such idea is for­eign to the Tanakh (from the ini­tial Hebrew let­ters of Torah, Nevi’im, and Kethu­bim — the “Law”, “Prophets” and “Writ­ings”). Know­ing God is obey­ing him:

1John 2:3 “And by this we may be sure that we know him, if we keep his com­mand­ments. 4 He who says “I know him” but dis­obeys his com­mand­ments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; 5 but who­ever keeps his word, in him truly love for God is per­fected. By this we may be sure that we are in him: 6 he who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”

When we con­sider the pas­sage about the giv­ing of the law in Deuteron­omy, we imme­di­ately notice the dif­fer­ence between the mosaic covenant and the new covenant proph­e­sied by Jeremiah:

Deut. 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; 5 and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6 And these words which I com­mand you this day shall be upon your heart; 7 and you shall teach them dili­gently to your chil­dren, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 And you shall write them on the door­posts of your house and on your gates.”

In the mosaic covenant peo­ple were instructed to learn the law by heart and teach their chil­dren also how to obey them, that is, how to know the LORD. In the new covenant there is no need for such teach­ing, for the law is not given on tablets of stones, but into the heart. There­fore, the dif­fer­ence between the two covenants is the way the law is given. Here tra­di­tional Chris­t­ian the­ol­ogy falls flat.

We may also con­sider other pas­sages that refer to the right­eous, who obeyed God:

Ps 37:32 “The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip.”

Ps 40:9 “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”

Isa 51:7 “Lis­ten to me, you who know right­eous­ness, the peo­ple in whose heart is my law; don?t you fear the reproach of men, nei­ther be you dis­mayed at their insults.”

We can see that the hav­ing the law in the heart was not con­fined to the new covenant only, but that in the mosaic covenant putting the law into one’s heart was the person’s own respon­si­bil­ity, while in the new covenant it is God who puts it there.

Putting the law in the heart is syn­ony­mous with putting the spirit of God in the heart. The result is obe­di­ence. Let us con­sider the fol­low­ing pas­sage and com­pare them with the ones before:

Ezek 36:27 “And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be care­ful to observe my ordi­nances.”

The result of hav­ing the law (or the spirit) in the heart is obe­di­ence, not the denial of the law.

Tra­di­tional Chris­t­ian the­ol­ogy teaches that Christ abol­ished the law. Let us con­sider the opin­ion of Jesus on the matter:

Matthew 5:17 “Think not that I have come to abol­ish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abol­ish them but to ful­fill them [i.e. as a duty]. 18 For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accom­plished [i.e. all prophe­cies come to pass]. 19 Who­ever then relaxes one of the least of these com­mand­ments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the king­dom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the king­dom of heaven.”

Jesus thus tes­ti­fies about the per­ma­nency of the law, not about its abol­ish­ment. He did not come to abol­ish the law, but to uphold it, to strengthen it. The idea that the law has been abol­ished comes from pas­sages in Paul’s epis­tles, which — I con­tend — have been badly misinterpreted.